Dictionary
a grammatical category in inflected languages governing the agreement between nouns and pronouns and adjectives in some languages it is quite arbitrary but in Indo-European languages it is usually based on sex or animateness the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles "she didn't want to know the sex of the foetus"
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Wikipedia
otheruses In a variety of different contexts, gender refers to the male masculinity or femalefemininity of words, persons, organisms, or characteristics. The classification into ''masculine'' and ''feminine'' is analogous to the biological sex of the referent, often by physical or syntactical analogy, linguistic decay, misunderstandings, societal norms, or personal choice. The nature of this categorisation varies depending on the context. For example, gender can be used to refer to the differences in biological sex between two members of a species, or different characteristics of electrical connectors. On the other side, in feminist theory, gender is used to refer solely to socially constructed differences between male and female behaviour, and the gender of a noun in many languages may have nothing to do with the concept described by it.Controversy surrounds the reasons, history, validity, and usefulness of many of these classifications.
Etymology and usage - ''Gender'' comes from Middle English ''gendre'', ultimately from Latin ''genus'', all meaning "kind", "sort", or "type". It appears in Modern French languageFrench in the word ''genre'' (type, kind) and is related to the Greek languageGreek root ''gen-'' (to produce), appearing in ''genesis'' and ''oxygen''. As a verb, it is used for ''to breed'' in the King James Bible:Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind.'' — Leviticus, 19:19 According to Aristotle, the Greek philospher Protagoras used the terms ''masculine'', ''feminine'', and ''neuter'' to classify nouns, introducing the concept of grammatical gender. Since the 14th century, the word is also used as a synonym for (biological) sex. Examples:The Psyche, or soul, of Tiresias is of the masculine gender'' — Thomas Browne, HydriotaphiaI may add the gender too of the person I am to govern'' — Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental JourneyBlack divinities of the feminine gender'' — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two CitiesOur most lively impression is that the sun is there assumed to be of the feminine gender'' — Henry James, Essays on LiteratureBy 1900, this usage was considered jocular by some. In 1926, Fowler's Modern English Usage suggested that “gender...is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons...of the masculine or feminine gender, meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder.”From ''Maven's Word of the Day''::Despite such pronouncements, which may be found in similar forms in many usage books, the use of gender to refer to sex has been increasingly common in the last several decades. This use of gender is comparably common, if not more common, than the equivalent use of sex. A few examples from this year: "The state has to justify any discrimination based on race, gender, national origin etc." (New Republic); "No residential college at Yale prohibits visits by either gender" (New York Times Magazine); "Can clever readers really tell a writer's gender from his or her prose?" (Harper's). The growth of this usage, sometimes blamed on "feminists," is probably a result of the increased frequency of the word sex in the sense of sexual intercourse; gender is employed to avoid the potential physical connotations of sex.In some parts of the social sciences, following a usage shift that began in the 1950s and was largely completed in the 1980s, ''gender'' has been used increasingly to refer to socially constructed aspects, in contrast to biologically determined, using the word ''sex'' for the latter. Example (again from MWofD) “Today a return to separate single-sex schools may hasten the revival of separate gender roles”. Another example: “The effectiveness of the medication appears to depend on the sex (not gender) of the patient”, but “In peasant societies, gender (not sex) roles are likely to be more clearly defined.” This distinction has been advocated vociferously by some, who consider the use of ''gender'' as a euphemism for ''sex'' incorrect. In the last half of the 20th century, the use of ''gender'' in academia has increased strongly, now outnumbering the occurrences of the word ''sex'' in the humanities, social sciences, and arts. However, use of the term ''gender'' includes the meaning ''biological sex'', and the distinction between ''sex'' and ''gender'' is only fitfully observed. (Haig, 2004)
Grammatical gender - ''Main article: grammatical gender''In linguistics, grammatical gender refers to a classification of nouns into classes, including masculine and feminine. The rules of grammar of many languages requires this classification to be reflected in the behaviour of associated words. Curzan illustrates this with a “highly contrived” example in Old English:: Seo brade line wæs tilu and ic hire lufod.: (Literal translation:) That broad shield was good and I her loved.The noun ''lind'' (shield) is grammatically feminine, and forces the pronoun ''seo'' (the, that) and the adjectives ''brade'' (broad) and ''tilu'' (good) to appear in their feminine forms. Notably for Modern English speakers, the pronoun ''hire'', referring back to ''lind'', is feminine, adopting the grammatical gender of the referent. By comparison, Modern English uses natural gender, where the noun's class agrees with the sex (or sexlessness) of the referent:: That broad shield was good and I loved it.Here, the ''shield'' is understood as a sexless object, and is referred to by the ''neuter'' pronoun, ''it''.
Gender in Indo-European languages - There are many indications that the Proto-Indo-European language in an early stage of its existence had no signs of gender at all. The terminations of the names of father and mother, ''peter'' and ''mater'', for example, are exactly the same. The idea of gender was first suggested by the difference between man and woman, male and female, and, as in so many languages at the present day, was represented not by any outward sign but by the meaning of the words themselves. When once arrived at, the conception of gender was extended to other objects besides those to which it properly belonged. The primitive Indo-European did not distinguish between subject and object, but personified objects by ascribing to them the motives and powers of living beings. Accordingly they were referred to by different pronouns, one class denoting the masculine and another class the feminine, and the distinction that existed between these two classes of pronouns was after a time transferred to the nouns. As soon as the preponderant number of stems ending in "o" in daily use had come to be regarded as masculine on account of their meaning, other stems ending in "o", whatever might be their signification, were made to follow the general analogy and were similarly classed as masculines. In the same way, the suffix -i or -ya acquired a feminine sense, and was set apart to represent the feminine gender. Unlike the Semitic languages, the Indo-Europeans were not satisfied with these two genders, masculine and feminine. As soon as object and subject, patient and agent, were clearly distinguished from each other, there arose a need for a third gender, which should be neither masculine nor feminine, but denote things without life. This third gender was fittingly expressed either by the objective case used as a nominative (e.g. regnum), or by a stem without any case ending at all (e.g. virus),In modern Indo-European languages, genders typically include feminine, masculine and neuter. Latin has these three, but in many of its modern descendants, such as French languageFrench and Spanish languageSpanish, the neuter gender has all but disappeared. For objects with sex, the grammatical gender almost always agrees with the sex, but there are exceptions. ... there are elaborate (and mostly incomplete) rules to define the gender of a word. For example, in German languageGerman, all nouns ending in -ung (corresponding to -ing in English) are feminine, and car brand names are masculine. Words with the diminutive ending -lein or -chen are always neuter, thus the grammatical genders of Mädchen (girl) and Fräulein (young woman) are neuter. In some local dialects of German, all nouns for female persons have been shifted to the neuter gender, but the female gender remains for some words denoting objects. English languageEnglish generally exhibits gender only in third-person singular pronouns (he, she, and it), with the masculine and feminine genders used only for persons or higher animals, and some sometimes objects in colloquial speech as in 'Isn't she a beauty?'.
Gender in other language families - In many languages, such as Eskimo and Choctaw, its place is taken by a division of objects into animate and inanimate, while in other languages they are separated into rational and irrational. These classifications are sometimes called ''noun classes'' instead of ''genders''.
Sex - ''Main article Biological sex Gender can refer to the (biological) condition of being male or female, applied to humans, animals, plants, and other sexual species. In this sense, the term is a synonym for ''sex'', a word that has undergone a usage shift itself, having become a synonym for ''sexual reproduction''.Haig:: "Among the reasons that working scientists have given me for choosing gender rather than sex in biological contexts are desires to signal sympathy with feminist goals, to use a more academic term, or to avoid the connotation of copulation." ''See'' sex-determination systems and sexual differentiation (for homo sapiens).
Social category - ''Cribbed from old/current gender article with some quotes from Haig. This needs to be expanded. It's easily the most interesting part of the article.''Since 1950, and increasing part of the academic literature, and of the public discourse uses ''gender'' for the perceived or projected (self-identified) masculinity or femininity of a person. The terms was introduced by Money (1955):: “The term ''gender role'' is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. It includes, but is not restricted to, sexuality in the sense of eroticism.”A person's gender is complex, encompassing countless characteristics of appearance, speech, movement and other factors not solely limited to biological sex.Societies tend to have binary gender systems in which everyone is categorized as male or female, but this is not universal. Some societies include a third gender role; for instance, the Native American Two-Spirit people and the hijras of India. There is debate over to what extent gender is a social construct and to what extent it is a biological construct. At the extremes of these views you have constructionism which suggests that it is entirely a social construct and essentialism which suggests that it's entirely a biological construct.Gender associations are constantly changing as society progresses. For example, the color pink was considered masculine in the early 1900s and is now seen as feminine.
In feminist theory - During the 1970s there was no consensus about how the terms were to be applied. In the 1974 edition of ''Masculine/Feminine or Human'', the author uses “innate gender” and “learned sex roles“, but in the 1978 edition, the use of ''sex'' and ''gender'' is reversed. By 1980, most feminist writings had agreed on using ''gender'' only for socioculturally adapted traits.
Other languages - In English, both ''sex'' and ''gender'' are used in contexts where they could not be substituted ( sexual intercourse; anal sex; safe sex; sex worker; sex slave). Other languages, like German, use the same word ''Geschlecht'' to refer both to grammatical gender and to biological sex, making the distinction between ''sex'' and ''gender'' advocated by some anthropologists difficult. In some contexts, German has adopted the English loan-word ''gender'' to achieve this distinction. Sometimes 'Geschlechtsidentitaet' is used as gender (although it literally means ''gender identity'') and 'Geschlecht' as sex (translation of Judith Butler's ''Gender Trouble''). More common is the use of modifiers: ''biologisches Geschlecht'' for ''sex'', ''Geschlechtsidentität'' for ''gender identity'' and ''Geschlechtsrolle'' for ''gender role'' etc.
Other uses -
Fasteners and connectors - In electrical and mechanical trades and manufacturing, each of a pair of mating Electrical connectorconnectors or fasteners is conventionally assigned the designation ''male'' or ''female''. The assignment is by direct analogy with animal genitalia; the part bearing one or more protrusions, or which fits inside the other, being designated male and the part containing the corresponding indentations or fitting outside the other being female. Examples: A power cord on a lamp or Home applianceappliance terminates in a (male) plug; it connects to a (female) socket in a wall or on an extension cord. Co-axial cables used for video or other high-frequency Signal (information theory)signals are normally terminated, at both ends, in a RF connectorconnector comprising an inner pin and an outer fixed or rotating shell; these are conventionally reckoned as male. A Nut (hardware)nut is female and a screwbolt is male.The gender of a connector is determined by the structure of its primary functional components, e.g., the conductors of an electrical connector, or the load-bearing parts of a fastener, and not by secondary features such as covers, shields or handles that may be installed for environmental protection, safe operation, etc.Connectors are also classified into ''plugs'' and ''receptables'' (or ''sockets'', ''jacks''); plugs are often male and receptables often female, but this is not always so. For example, the C13 IEC connector used to connect many desktop computers is female plug that fits into a male receptable. A device called a ''gender changer'' may be used to join two connectors of the same gender, for example, to extend one video cable with another. Certain connector designs involve paired identical parts each containing both protrusions and indentations; the term ''hermaphrodite'' is used for such devices,
Music - In Western Music theory, chords and scales are grouped into ''modes'' called ''major'' and ''minor'', traditionally related to ''masculine'' and ''feminine''. By analogy, the ''major'' scales are masculine (clear, open, extrovert), while the minor scales are given feminine qualities (dark, soft, introvert). German uses the same word (''Tongeschlecht''), and the words ''Dur'' (from latin ''durus'', hard) for ''major'' and ''moll'' (from latin ''mollis'', soft) for ''minor''. ''See'' Major and minor.
References - Chafetz, J. S. ''Masculine/feminine or human? An overview of the sociology of sex roles. 1st ed. 1974, 2nd ed. 178. Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock. Haig, D. ''The inexorable rise of gender and the decline of sex: social change in academic titles, 1945-2001.'' Archives of Sexual Behavior 33: 87-96, 2004 oeb.harvard.edu Money, J. ''Hermaphroditism, gender and precocity in hyperadrenocorticism: Psychologic findings.'' Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 96, 253–264, 1955. randomhouse.com
See also - androgynyfemale bodybuildingfeminitygender bendergender identitygender roleGender StudieshomosexualitymasculinityQueerQueer Studiesstereotypethird gendertransgenderlist of transgender-related topicsJudith Halberstam
External links - !topics.developmentgateway.org< /a> - Gender and Povertymoodle.ed.uiuc.edu - WikEd - Gender Inequities in the Classroommoodle.ed.uiuc.edu - WikEd - Gender !DifferencesCategory:Gender es:Género !(desambiguación)fr:Genrela:Ge nusja:ジェン ダーhe:מ 90;דרit:Genere? !(sociologia)no:Kjønnru:Ген дерsimple:Gender
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Woman Thou Art God - The University of Mother God Church
Guru Rasa Von Werder's teachings on Matriarchy, Female Empowerment, the Feminine Divine, Yoga, Christianity, Mystical Union, the Beatific Vision, Self Realization, Enlightenment, Visions and Her Dictionary of Dream Symbols.
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Chicfun
Free site dedicated to erotic and sarcastic adult humor with a touch of design.
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Crissy Wild : Transsexual Transexual Transgender Transvestite Crossdresser Resource Library
Crissy Wild's is the most comprehensive and best known transsexual transgender resource library in the World
http://www.crissywild.com/
The Linden School
The Linden School is an academic girl-centred school which promotes the voice and development of young women though an equity-based curriculum.
http://www.lindenschool.ca/
KhushDC.org
KhushDC is a social, support and political group that provides a safe and supportive environment, promotes awareness and acceptance, and fosters positive cultural and sexual identity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning (LGBTQ) and additional gender or sexual minority South Asians in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
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LiterNet
Electronic magazine for literature, humanitarian studies and education
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GENDER
Official website of GENDER, original electropop from Sweden.
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Voices Unabridged
Voices Unabridged is an international news organization with a non-profit status which purpose is to raise awareness about issues affecting women’s rights around the world. It publishes a quarterly online magazine that has become a reference for a global, educated and politically minded audience in search of social justice.
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Birds and Exotics Animal Care
Birds and Exotics Animal Care is a complete veterinary and surgical facility specializing in the care of birds and exotics animals including rabbits, ferrets, guinea pigs, fish, reptiles, amphibians, turtles, sugar gliders, hedgehogs, etc. Please visit our website for more information!
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Sapere Aude - Dare to Think for Yourself
Website of Ms Giji Gya, Consultant on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR or RSE), Gender and Sustainable Development. Based in Bruxelles. Webpages contain articles, opinon pieces, conference papers and links to CSR issues. Also contains Adesa Exchange - A fora of ideas and action to create change, exchange and educate into the next decade. http://www.adesaexchange.org
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Anneke Smelik
Anneke Smelik Anneke Smelik is Professor of Visual Culture at the University of Nijmegen (Netherlands). She has published widely on gender and ethnicity in media (film, video clips and science fiction). Her research interests include the body in digital art and culture; secular spirituality in contemporary visual culture; and issues of visual literacy.
http://www.annekesmelik.nl
Gender Education & Advocacy
The web site of Gender Education and Advocacy, providing resources and activism for the transgender community. "The organization for gender variant people for the new millennium." Divisions include "It's Time, America," AEGIS, and the Remembering Our Dead project.
http://www.gender.org/
The English Server
Includes a variety of literature-related materials, including etext archives of prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction; links.
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